Over on his weblog, my buddy Earl Kress mentions one of my favorite Hanna-Barbera characters…Chopper the Bulldog from the Yakky Doodle cartoons. It got me to wondering how many people know that Chopper was sorta, kinda inspired by the great western actor, Chill Wills.
In 1961 when the Yogi Bear show was in production (with the Yakky cartoons as a segment), Mr. Wills was in the news, at least in Hollywood. The year before, he'd had a showy role in the John Wayne movie, The Alamo, and there was talk of him winning an Academy Award for his performance. Much of this talk came from Chill Wills, who took out a series of costly ads in the Hollywood trade papers, first to tout himself for a nomination and then, after he was nominated, to ask people to vote for him.
In later years, it would become fairly standard to see the pages of Variety and Hollywood Reporter crammed with ads urging members of the Academy to vote this way or that way. At the time though, it wasn't such a well-established industry custom…and even later when it was, the ads would usually not be so personal. Today, there will be pages aplenty suggesting you vote for Nicolas Cage but those pleas are not purchased by Nicolas Cage or signed by him.
The Wills ads struck many as excessive and offensive. In one, he said that the producers of The Alamo were praying as hard for Chill Wills to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the defenders of the actual Alamo had prayed for their lives before battle. Others were worse, though late in the campaign he seems to have realized he was alienating voters and toned it down. After the balloting closed, he took out a full pager that said, "Win, lose or draw, you're all my cousins." This prompted a response ad from Groucho Marx who wrote, "Dear Chill Wills…Am happy to be your cousin but I voted for Sal Mineo." When the envelope was opened, it turned out that most people had voted for their cousin, Peter Ustinov, for his role in Spartacus, and it became industry legend that Chill had put a chill on his own chances with his trade ads. (Twelve years later, the same would be said of the campaign mounted on behalf of Diana Ross for her performance in Lady Sings the Blues.)
So one day in the midst of the voting in '61, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera and their creative team are working on their newest show. They'd decided to build a cartoon around a little duck character who'd appeared occasionally in their earlier cartoons. He'd been called Itty Bitty Buddy (or Iddy Biddy Buddy) when he'd appeared in earlier H-B cartoons and a slightly different version of the duck had popped up in the Tom & Jerry cartoons that Bill and Joe had directed for MGM. They'd named his newest identity Yakky Doodle Duck and now needed a strong supporting character to play off him. They found a direction for that character when…
Well, if we believe something Barbera once told me — and I'm not saying I do — the phone rang and it was Chill Wills, calling to ask J.B. to vote for him. Joe told me he promised Wills he would, got off the phone and thought, "Gee, what a great voice…and that manner. That's just what our duck needs." Before the day was out, Chopper the Bulldog was born.
Cute story…and maybe it's even true. Or maybe Joe just noticed one of Chill's ads in Variety and that provided the inspiration. A lot of Hanna-Barbera characters started with some reference point to a comedian or character actor — Jimmy Durante for Doggie Daddy, Bert Lahr for Snagglepuss, Joe E. Brown for Peter Potamus, etc. Either way, Chill Wills inspired Chopper.
Since an Academy Award Nominee wasn't about to do voicework for what Hanna-Barbera paid, an actor with a similar vocal quality had to be found. Joe Barbera looked as far as Channel Five on his TV, hiring the local Bozo the Clown, the gravelly-voiced Vance Colvig, Jr. Vance was a second-generation Bozo. His father was Vance "Pinto" Colvig, the first Bozo on records and on local TV. Below is a photo from the 1989 Al Yankovic movie, UHF. That's Vance…and I'm sorry I couldn't find a better photo of him.
(Finding the voice of Yakky Doodle was a little harder. For that, Barbera had to go all the way over to Channel Thirteen…to an afternoon kids' show called Cartooneroony, hosted by "Uncle" Jimmy Weldon and his duck puppet, Webster Webfoot. Weldon did a great duck voice for Webster and it also became the voice of Yakky.)
And that's about all I have to contribute to the subject of Chopper the Bulldog. Yeah, I know: A lot more than you wanted to know. But that's what the Internet is for.
[UPDATE: Jim Engel just sent me an e-mail asking me if the Chopper characterization wasn't based on the Wallace Beery role in the movie, The Champ. He's right and I meant to mention that. But the character started with the Chill Wills voice, the same way The Jetsons started out to be based on The Life of Riley and turned somewhat into Blondie along the way. So I guess I did have more to contribute.]